Fellow #oneadayer @Bungiesgirl wrote an excellent post the other day about “The Curse of Mr Nice Guy“. She hit the nail bang on the head; there are times when it almost seems that it doesn’t pay to be a nice person, for a guy at least.

Thinking about it, I’m not actually sure I’ve ever known anyone who’s used the oft-quoted “I love bad boys” line. But I certainly know a couple of people who have consistently ended up with people who make them miserable when it may be that there is, in fact, someone standing right in front of them who would provide them with what they want out of a relationship. Only, because they’re one of the proverbial “Mr Nice Guys”, they’re not even in the running for that person’s affections. At least, not in the “anything more than friendship” sort of case.

Some people call this “friend-zoning”, where Mr Nice Guy has become too good a friend to even be considered relationship material. I’m not sure where this phenomenon or the term to describe it originally came from, but it happens all the time, and adds an interesting twist to the age-old question of whether or not men and women can possibly be friends with each other without the desire to insert parts of each other into various orifices getting in the way.

The simple answer to said age-old question is, of course “Yes, don’t be silly”. Take stock of your friends for a moment and there’s probably a good balance of both boys and girls there. And there are probably some people of the opposite sex (assuming heterosexuality for the purposes of this argument) that you don’t want to jump at the first opportunity. Even when drunk. The reasons for this could be many; maybe you don’t fancy them, maybe you value your friendship too much, maybe you’ve even had a relationship with them in the past. But the fact is, opposite-sex friendships can and do happen.

It’s when they’re a little lop-sided that difficulties happen, and such is often the case with Mr Nice Guy.

Let’s take a hypothetical situation. Ms Ladygirl is having a tough time of it. Her partner, Mr Wrong, isn’t what she wants, but she doesn’t want to leave him—either she doesn’t want to be alone or she has somehow convinced herself that she “loves” him. She confides in Mr Nice Guy, who 1) fancies her and 2) thinks it’s blindingly obvious that he could do a better job of providing her with happiness, cake and orgasms than Mr Wrong could ever do. Mr Nice Guy, being a decent, upstanding sort of chap, though, also generally does not like to exacerbate situations where emotions run high by throwing his own, possibly unexpected, feelings into the mix. So he listens to Ms Ladygirl, offers her support, takes care of her, holds her hair out of her face when she’s sick, carries her home when she gets wasted and then leaves her to sleep while he walks home to go and have a biiiig wank and cry into his pillow.

It’s a difficult (and, I hasten to add, completely hypothetical) situation. But what should Mr Nice Guy do? If he says nothing, then obviously nothing will happen for him. If he says something, though, Ms Ladygirl may interpret it as a selfish act—”I want you. So get rid of him.”—whereas he in fact meant it more as “You’re not happy. I want to see if I can make you happier than he does.”

Of course, there’s always the chance that Ms Ladygirl would correctly interpret his advances, cast aside Mr Wrong and happily live forever after with Mr Nice Guy. But due to the nature of your average Mr Nice Guy, that doesn’t happen that often.

Which is a pity, really, because Mr Nice Guys, as their name suggests, are in fact very nice guys. They’re not boring, they’re not clingy, they’re not any of the assumptions you might care to make about them. They’re people too; people who like helping others and hope that one day their caring, considerate, compassionate nature will bring them a partner who truly deserves their attention.

So if you’re a Ms Ladygirl and you’re clearly dating a Mr Wrong, I’d strongly urge to to pay attention to those non-spoken, non-obvious telepathic signals that the Mr Nice Guy you inevitably know is highly likely sending you.

Do the guy a favour. Grab him by his lapels and kiss him. Neither of you will regret it.